Tag: Prop 8

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Petition: Ask President Obama to file brief to uphold Prop 8 repeal

Equality California is asking their supporters to sign a petition urging President Obama to file a brief in the upcoming US Supreme Court case:

When the President acknowledges your love during his inaugural address, when he makes your equality a benchmark of America’s promise, when he draws commonality from our struggle for dignity and justice to Seneca Falls and Selma, it is impossible not to surge with gratitude and wonder at the progress we have made within the span of a generation.

But, as President Obama said, our journey is not complete. We cannot yet enjoy the freedoms promised; while we can see the hill, we can’t yet rest there. For all of us who heard those powerful words yesterday, thankful and hopeful, we can now help President Obama take the next step on our journey, a journey that is incomplete until all Americans can marry the person that they love.

Please, take a moment and urge President Obama to file an amicus brief in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Proposition 8 case. He knows that this is the path the country must take to achieve the promise of equality; take a moment to encourage his hand to follow his heart.

Sign the petition here

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GOP quiet on SCOTUS’ marriage equality hearings

Politico notes that thus far the leadership of the Republican Party has not responded to Friday’s Supreme Court decisions.

House Republican leaders had a uniform response to the Supreme Court’s decision to take up gay marriage: silence. The high court’s decision last week to hear two cases relating to same-sex marriage puts that issue at the center of the national debate. And it does so at an exceedingly awkward time for Republicans, many of whom are trying to downplay or moderate their party’s views on social issues to chart a path back to electoral success.

“I’m personally grateful to Speaker Boehner for being willing to defend the law, but it’s clear GOP elites don’t want to talk about it and want to keep it as quiet as possible,” said Maggie Gallagher, a founder of the National Organization for Marriage and a fellow at the conservative American Principles Project. “That’s so obvious, I don’t see any point in pretending otherwise.” Tom McClusky of the Family Research Council said he assumes from conversations he’s had with congressional aides that lawmakers are pleased the high court is taking up the issue. “But there’s just radio silence” publicly, McClusky said. “I was disappointed there wasn’t more from the Hill.”

In related news, Maggie Gallagher said yesterday that she expects SCOTUS to overturn DOMA but uphold Prop 8.

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US Supreme Court to discuss Prop 8 & DOMA challenges November 30

An update from the American Foundation for Equal Rights regarding marriage equality SCOTUS appeals :

AFER just received word from the U.S. Supreme Court that it will discuss whether to hear AFER’s federal constitutional challenge to California’s Proposition 8 at its private Conference on Friday, November 30. The Court will also consider on that date whether it will hear one or more challenges to the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Both the Prop. 8 case and the DOMA cases had previously been distributed for discussion at the Justices’ November 20 Conference.

The updated timeline suggests that we will likely find out if our case will be heard by the nation’s highest court, or if marriages can resume in California, by Monday, December 3. However, there is no deadline by which the Court must act, and the Justices could hold the case for consideration at a future Conference.

I’m personally getting a bit impatient with all the delays, but I’m hoping it leads to good news eventually.

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No word from Supreme Court on Prop 8

I woke up today hoping to hear that the US Supreme Court had made a decision on whether to take on review of the Prop 8 case or not (which would basically kill Prop 8). In a disappointing beginning to my week, SCOTUS today took no action on any of those cases.  It doesn’t mean anything concrete other than we must continue to wait for a decision.

So there are a couple possible scenarios left according to SDGLN:

1. The Supreme Court, on Oct. 8, will release the list of cases that it will not consider. If the Prop 8 and/or DOMA cases are placed on that list, then the lower court rulings will stand. Gay and lesbian couples in California would again be able to marry, as soon as the lower courts sign off on the case.

2. However, if the Prop 8 and/or DOMA cases are not on the list, that means the Supreme Court could be postponing any decision on those cases until after the presidential election, making Nov. 19 a highly watched date. There is also the distinct possibility that the justices will merge several high-profile gay-rights cases to review en masse.

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Marriage News Watch – September 25, 2012

In what is easily the most anti-climactic possibility for an announcement regarding the Supreme Court and marriage equality, SCOTUS released it’s list of cases it will take up this year and the California Prop 8 case is not on the list.

However, that is not the end of the road for Prop 8 just yet.  There are still other variables in this equation.

From the American Foundation for Equal Rights:

The Justices meet nearly every week to determine the cases they will take up. The next time we could hear something is Monday, October 1 at 9:30 a.m. EDT / 6:30 a.m. PDT, when the Court is expected to release a list of cases it is not hearing this Term.

Some have speculated that the Supreme Court may wait to consider our case until later this fall when the Justices will decide whether to grant review in several cases challenging the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.

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US Supreme Court receives appeal on the overturn of Prop 8

The US Supreme Court today  received an appeal on the overturn of Prop 8. Chris Geidner reports:

Supporters of California’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex couples from marrying, Proposition 8, have asked the Supreme Court to hear the ongoing challenge to the law in order to reverse an appeals court decision from earlier this year that struck down the amendment as unconstitutional.

Specifically, they ask the court in a filing today to decide “Whether the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the State of California from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.”

Arguing that “[u]nique recognition of a unique relationship in no way disapproves or dishonors other relationships that the State has chosen to recognize differently,” the Proposition 8 proponents ask the court to take the case to correct the “manifest errors” of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and “to return to the People themselves this important and sensitive issue.”

AFER has 30 days to respond to the filing.

The Supreme Court is currently on summer recess and will not announce which cases it will review until this falls.

(h/t JoeMyGod)

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Ninth Circuit refuses to hear Prop 8 appeal

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that it won’t rehear a case in which Proposition 8 had been ruled unconstitutional, setting up a possible fight before the U.S. Supreme Court.

After a three-judge panel in February agreed with Judge Vaughn Walker’s 2010 decision in Perry v. Brown that Proposition 8 violated the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause and the due process clause, proponents of the law sought an “en banc review.” Such a review would have required judicial evaluation by the full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and could have included 11 appellate judges, but a majority of justices voted to deny the rehearing.

Now Prop. 8 backers have 90 days to decide whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, setting the stage for a national case on marriage equality. If they don’t decide to appeal, then same-sex couples would again begin marrying.

The nation’s most populous state narrowly passed Prop. 8 in 2008 and banned same-sex marriage, which had already been legal but then became outlawed. A federal challenge to the ban, led by American Foundation for Equal Rights and attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies, has been very successful, with wins in federal district court and in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Read more at The Advocate

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Dustin Lance Black’s play “8” in L.A. with an all-star cast

“8”- Dustin Lance Black’s play about the Prop 8 trial.

Featuring an all-star cast including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Martin Sheen, Christine Lahti, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jane Lynch, Kevin Bacon and others, “8” is a play written by Academy Award winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and directed by acclaimed actor and director Rob Reiner. It is a powerful account of the case filed by the American Federation for Equal Rights (AFER ) in the U.S.

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Brad Pitt will join all-star cast of “Prop 8”

The American Foundation for Equal Rights and Broadway Impact announced that the Brad Pitt will join the cast of the West Coast premiere reading of the Proposition 8 play, 8, which will be live-streamed via YouTube this Saturday, beginning at 7:45 p.m. Pacific.

The staged reading is an unprecedented account of the U.S. district court trial in Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now Perry v. Brown), the suit filed by AFER to overturn Prop. 8, which stripped same-sex couples in California of the fundamental freedom to marry.

Brad Pitt will star as Judge Vaughn R. Walker, the man who found Prop. 8 unconstitutional, joining an already star-studded cast that includes George Clooney, Kevin Bacon, Jane Lynch, John C. Reilly, Chris Colfer, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Cleve Jones, George Takei, The Simpsons’ Yeardley Smith, and many more.

The same-sex couples at the heart of the piece will be played by Christine Lahti and Jamie Lee Curtis (who will star as plaintiffs Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, a lesbian couple together for 11 years and the parents of four boys) and Glee’s Matthew Morrison and White Collar’s Matt Bomer (who will play plaintiffs Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, a gay couple together over 10 years).

The production — sponsored by Bryan Singer, director of The Usual Suspects and X-Men — takes place Saturday at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles, and proceeds will benefit the fight for marriage equality at the federal level. The free live stream of the event is unprecedented for a cast of this magnitude.
(source)